Citation Numbers: 22 F. 428
Judges: Blodgett
Filed Date: 11/24/1884
Status: Precedential
Modified Date: 9/9/2022
This is a suit to restrain the infringement of patent No. 88,413, issued as of March 23, 1869, to John G. Robinson, for an “improvement in gang and trench plows,” and for an accounting for profits and damages. This patent covers several devices, but the only one in controversy in this suit is what the patentee describes “as a device for adjusting the depth of the furrows.” It consists of a movable arm or wheel-journal for the right hand, or furrow-wheel, with an angular lever so connected with this movable arm that this wheel-arm can be raised above or lowered below the end of the axle. The wheel-arm or journal is fastened horizontally to a grooved vertical plate, which is arranged to move on a plate fixed vertically to the end of the axle, and an angular lever fulcrumed on the axle is connected by a pitman with the grooved plate which carries the wheel, Bo that the axle may be raised or lowered by the movement of this lever in the notches of a ratcheted bar with which it is held in en-v gagement by a spring. This feature of the patent is covered by the first claim, which is:
(1) “The combination of the angular levor, A, ratchet, 0, and spring, B, with the pitman, D, and sliding axle-tree arm, E, in the manner described and for the purposes set forth.”.
The defenses are (1) that defendant does not infringe; (2) that the patent is void for want of novelty.
The proof in this case shows that wheel-arms, which could be moved upon the end of the axle of a wheeled cultivator or plow so as to bring the axle, or one end of it, above or below the center of the wheel, are old, and were well known long prior to the issue of this patent. In fact, it is only the axle inside the hub of the wheel which moves up or down in the complainant’s device, or any of the devices shown in the proof, as the wheel always rests upon the ground, and the axle is the part of the device which changes its position. We find in the patent of Joseph Yowles, for a cultivator, issued in February, 1860, a wheel-spindle, vertically movable on the end of the axle, the slides, or plates, to which the spindle or wheel-arms were fixed, having a rack, and levers being arranged with teeth to engage with the teeth or cogs of the rack, so as to move the wheel-arm up or down with these levers.
It therefore clearly appears that devices for adjusting the height of one or both ends of the axle in relation to the center of the wheel when applied to cultivators and plows was old before the patent now before the court was granted, and that in all the prior patents substantially the same mode of securing the movability of the axle was adopted; that is, the whool-arm was made fast to a vertical plate, which is either-grooved so as to slide on a vertical plate fixed to the end of the axle, or the plate fixed to the end of the axle is grooved, and the plate fixed to the end of the arms slides in such grooves. Wo also find that in the Vowlos patents of 1860 and 1861 the wheel-arm is actuated by moans of a lever having a toothed segment at the end which engages with the teeth or cogs of a rack attached to the plate which carries the wheel-arm.; this sogmeolal lever being fulcrumed on a pin so as to move the plate up or dovni without tlio aid of a connecting link or pit-man. In the Eraser patent of 1861 a sector or eccentric is applied to raise or lower this movable wheel-arm. In the patent of Black of December, 1865, a bent or angular lever is shown attached to a chain connected with the sliding-plate fixed to the wheel-arm; and it also shows an arched or segment-shaped notched bar so arranged as to engage with or hold the lever in any place within its range; mother words, a ratchet bar.
Here we have in these older devices, as it seems to me, all the elements of the first claim of this .Robinson patent. Vowlos’ two patents show levers with segments or eccentrics, and the teeth or cogs
The problem which Yowles, in both his patents, and Fraser and Black were attempting to solve was to raise or lower this movable wheel-arm by means of a lever to be actuated from the driver’s seat or standing place. They all used substantially the same device for making the axle arm movable; they all used levers, which were either angular levers or the usual and well-known mechanical substitutes for the angular lever. The toothed segment of Yowles and the Fraser lever, with the sector or eccentric at the end, are all nothing but angular or bent levers, while Black used an angular lever with a notched ratchet to hold it in place, the chain acting as a pit-man, having side elasticity enough to keep it in the notches where it might be set by the operator. But, even if it should be thought that all the minor elements of this claim are not found combined in either of those older devices, it is enough to say that the levers shown supply, by their own peculiar structure, the parts, such as the pitman and spring, and make the pitman and spring of Robinson’s patent unnecessary. Suppose, for illustration, that Robinson had been the first to make a movable wheel-arm on the end of an axle, so as to give to a plow or cultivator the means for adjusting the height of the axle above or below the center of the wheel, and had adopted the Yowles device of a,lever with a toothed segment, and cogged or toothed vertical plate; would not any one who should afterwards adopt a bent lever and pitman, to accomplish the same result, be held to be a most palpable infringer ?
Tho complainant’s experts have, at considerable length, expounded the dynamics of plowing and attempted to prove that the depth of the furrow, even with a plow mounted upon wheels, is wholly determined by the draught from tho clevis at the end of the plow-beam, and insist that Robinson’s idea of regulating the depth of the plowing by the height of the axle is all a fallacy. It will he noticed, however, that in Robinson’s organization his plow-beams are placed on top of his axle-tree, and I cannot understand how the depth of the furrow is not, to some extent, controlled by the height of tho axle. If, by the operation of the draught upon the clevis, the plows have to run more shallow Ilian the limit of the height of the beams upon the axle admits, then the beams must carry clear of the ground the wheels and the entire structure of the wheel-carriage; while it is plain, that the plow can, under no circumstances, no matter what may he the relation of the draught from the clevis, run deeper than is allowable by the axle under it; in other words, the plow must run level. It is pivoted on the axle, if it is to go deeper than the level determined by the height of the axle, it must drop its roar end down, and the.moment this is down, it begins to run out of the ground, while if tho forward end drops down, under the action of the draught from the team on the clevis, the heel or rear of tho plow rises, and it runs on its point, as the plowmen say.
It must be admitted that even if Robinson believed at the time he made his invention that its chief merit or utility was to regulate the depth of the furrow, and it has turned out in practice that he was mistaken in that regard, he is still entitled to whatever merit there is in his device, even if it does not operate as he expected; and
Upon the question of infringement, I do not think the device used by defendant for raising or lowering the wheel-arm of the land-wheel in their plow shows the same combination claimed in the Robinson patent for raising and lowering his furrow-wheel, because the defendant does not use what can be technically called a pitman; but it uses a bent lever connected with the sliding plate by a link, and defendant holds the lever in place on the ratchet by a trigger and spring which is different in its action and construction from complainant’s flat spring, B; while it clearly appears from the proof that the means' for fixing the movable arm to the end of the axle and the levers by which the arm is moved for the purpose of adjusting the height of the axle are all shown in the older art to such an extent as to,have fully anticipated all that is shown in the complainant’s patent. The older art certainly shows, in the patents I have cited, the sliding wheel-arm, E, and angular and segmental levers and sectors by which this wheel-arm is moved up and down, so as to change the plane of the end of the axle, and, as I have already said, it seems to me by entirely equivalent means to those shown in the claims of the complainant’s patent. Indeed, the defendant’s plow seems to me more nearly a mere mechanical modification of Eraser’s and Black’s devices than an imitation, either in form or principle, of the Robinson device. The bill is therefore dismissed for want of equity.